I’ve loved Sam’s Wholesale Club ever since my college days, when I first felt the wonder of buying an entire crate of Peanut M&Ms for less than fifteen bucks. We used to drive from Hattiesburg to Jackson, stock up on whole frozen cheesecakes and twenty-four packs of Zest, then amuse ourselves by eating an entire super-size bag of Doritos on the way home.
Now I’ve another reason to go: the FujiFilm digital photo printer. This touch-screen driven kiosk accepts memory cards, CDs, or floppy disks, then ports images over to the monstrous photo printer in the Sam’s Photo Finishing department. In about an hour, I can get sharp, borderless 3×5, 4×6, or 8×10 prints for twenty cents per image … real photographs on real photographic paper for less than I can print them on an inkjet printer at my home (without any of the fuss of printing or trimming them myself!).
I manipulate my own images at home, eliminating red-eye or subtracting a pound or two from my tummy and neck … but those of you lacking your own digital tools can color-correct, crop, rotate, and reduce red-eye using the free tools at the FujiFilm kiosk. (The Kodak kiosk offers similar funcationality, but isn’t tied into the photographic printer, and charges about $4.50 to print one sheet containing three or four prints.)
One of the major drawbacks of digital photography has been the lack of an easy way to share images with people who lack ‘net connectivity or computer savvy. Now, I’m all about making up handy little books of prints for the family. (At twenty cents a print — and with Wal-Mart selling great little 100-shot photo albums for five bucks — why not?)
You don’t have to think small, either. Through Sam’s web site, you can order poster-size photographic prints for less than you’d think, and have ’em at your home in under a week.
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